That is a prime candidate for the hairspray method. Early in the war the Japanese planes specially the seaplanes had orange/red primer showing thru the weathered paint. 

The weathered areas in the picture look like NMF so it’s hard to tell from a BW picture and I don’t trust the colorized ones for accuracy. Later in the war lack of primer made the paint flake off really easily.

Good idea, I might just give that a try.  Haven't tried the hair spray method yet, and I love learning new things.

I was surprised when I researched this plane that it was used for dive-bombing against china in the late '30s.  A float plane, dive bombing!  That would never cross my mind.  I thought it was odd when I saw the bombs on the plane in the box art.  lol

I found some pictures of one of these planes that was severly damaged in a fight with Chinese Gloster Gladiators.  The plane made it back to their seaplane tender, but had to ditch in the water.  The tender recovered the plane and put it on display in Japan.

M.

It's a very cool and unique subject.  I don't see many "Daves."  Your cockpit and trolly paint and weathering looks fantastic.  

Cool subject.  I really like the float planes.  I would like to see combat footage of a float plane dive bombing!  Assume thy pull out early but who knows.  Nice progress so far  

I found this fascinating film showing the "Dave" in action!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=347&v=FK0xdnayGDI

M

Nice work on the dolly and the plane so far! 

Below are the latest pics from this build.  This kit is awesome so far.  The fit is exceptional.  After viewing the video in my last post, I was discouraged to see that this plane has a lot of wire rigging.  The box art doesn't show any of that, and it's not shown in the directions or painting guide.  So that's a bummer.  I've looked around and found some sources that will help to rig it correctly, but just not looking forward to doing it.

Anyway...

The cockpit tub fit into the fuselage perfectly and the two halves went together without any gaps.  And the top of the fuselage sat down on top of it just fine.

The engine is kind of plain and I didn't do anything other than dry brush some highlights onto it, but I did drill out the four exhaust ports and I'm really happy with the weathering I did on the pipes.  I used a combination of Tamiya Rubber Black and Hull Red, and some black and gray pastell chalk dust.

The cowling parts have positive location points inside them so getting them onto the engine went fine.  Here the sub-assembly is masked up and ready for paint.  (forgot to take pictures showing this part of the build... D'oh!)

The wings glued up without issue, again no gaps and only minimal sanding to clean the seams.  The lower wing is now attached.  The connections to the fuselage are pretty solid and I had no trouble with it.  In the first pic the upper wing is resting in the aircraft dolly.  lol 

Hopefully get some more done today.

Cheers, Mark

Build update:

I managed to get all the paint down on the big parts of the plane, except the pontoon.  For the underside I used XF-76 IJN Grey-Green, mixed with a little XF-2 Flat White.  For the camo I used Tamiya XF-11 IJN Green and XF-9 Hull Red.  Laid it all down over a black primer coat.  I free-handed the camo because I enjoy doing that instead of spending hours masking the patterns.  It results in softer edges but I kind of prefer that look.

I screwed up a bit on the horizonal stabilizers.

There should be a series of white lines radiating out across those surfaces...

(I think they have something to do with helping the gunner with deflection shots?)
...that I planned on painting, instead of using the decals.

As you can see, the decals are 90% carrier film, covering the entire surface of the stabilizer and elevator.  This seems like an invitation for a silvering nightmare. 
After laying down the camo I realized I screwed up.  I should have shot flat white over the entire surface first, then used 1mm tape to mask the lines and shoot the camo over that.  So the horizonal stabs are a complete redo.

That's it for now.
Cheers, Mark

Thanks Joe.  I have some 1mm tape (Vallejo I think) that I got last year during another project when I discovered how bad I am at slicing thin strips of Tamiya tape. LOL
I think the 1mm tape will be perfect for this, and save me a lot of sanity.

Build Update:

I laid down the camo on the three pontoons.  I decided against plasticjunkie's suggestion of using the hairspray technique to chip the main pontoon, simply because I don't want to spend the money.  I know it wouldn't cost much, but when your unemployed you have to pick and choose your spending carefully.  Plus, I feel real comfortable with sponge chipping, so I'll be going with that technique again.  Here's how the pontoons look with their fresh paint.

I weathered the underside of the top wing with with some slight staining and streaking using oils. 

Here, I've painted the Hinomarus on the top wing, and laid camo on the engine cowling.

And then painted the Hinomarus on the fuselage.  I first had to add a hard circular mask to extend color from the underside up the fuselage since the Hinomaru had that color as an outline.  I think that circular mask was slightly too big, so the outline is bigger than I think it should be.  But I'll live with it.

Added some chipping to the few metal panels at the front of the fuselage, and the wing roots before they meet the fabric sections.  Then I added the engine sub-assembly and did some chipping to the cowling.

Finally, painted the Hinomarus on the underside of the bottom wing, and did some exhaust staining on the fuselage and wings with oil paints.

In the background of this last pic you can see the horizontal stabilizers have been repainted in flat white, awaiting the masking strips for the deflection lines, then I'll redo the camo over that.  Should work out well.

Cheers, Mark

Hi,

Your build is looking great 

Fantastic work sir!

Your friend, Toshi

Mark,

Looking fabulous so far.

As to the rigging ... I noted that at least one reviewer had some problems with the PE rigging. You might look at what he had to say and then determine whether or not it's of any help to you. Here's the link:

https://www.cybermodeler.com/hobby/builds/has/build_has_19197.shtml

I've had nightmare problems with PE rigging on two kits (Tamiya's 1/48 Fairey Swordfish and Accurate Miniatures 1/48 F3F-1) but they were due to my lack of skill more than the design of the kits. Nonetheless, reading the section about the PE rigging in the above linked URL might save you some headaches.

Thanks for the link Mike.  That was a good article  He was using an after-market PE set, that I don't have.  So I'll be using EZ-Line for my rigging.  He also has a rudder for the main pontoon that didn't come with the kit.  I think it looks cool, but I'm not going to spend the money for it.   

UPDATE:

Finally got around to chipping and weathering the pontoons.  The outriggers were a quick job, but the big pontoon took some time.  I did several passes of chipping, and weathering, and chipping some more.  I like how it came out, but of course I always think of things I could've done differently.  Next time...

The small pontoons.  Only one was rigged when I took the picture.

Here is the final pontoon, with painted white stripe instead of decal.


I forgot to take a picture of it before I closed up the pontoon, but I added a large fishing sinker to the nose of the pontoon, because I had read that without it, the plane would tail-sit when placed on the aircraft dolly.  Kit comes with a little part to prop up the back, but I would rather not use that.

Added the interplane struts.  I dry-fit the top wing in place and only applied glue to the bottom of the struts, so they would set at the correct angles.  Then when the glue was set I removed the top wing again so I could start with placing rigging.  Also added tail number decals.

Here you can see I've attached the horizonatal stabilizers and started rigging.  The painted white lines turned out okay.  There's one wonky bit on the right stab, but it's not too noticeable.

I kind of messed up the order of things next.  I attached the top wing (affter setting the rigging attachments on it) and that worked out fine.  But then I added the outrigger pontoons and the bombs to the lower wing.  I shouldn't have done that, because now it is quite a bit more fragile when handling, which will probably make the job of rigging even more difficult.  Well, we'll see how that goes.  The tail rigging is done, you can kind of see it in this pic.

Hoping to get the rigging done today, then attach the main pontoon tomorrow.  More rigging after that.  Ugh.

Cheers, Mark

Looking really good!  That was an awesome video.  The launching on the ramp would make a cool diorama. 

That's a neat model, and you are doing a fine job. I went through a floater phase a few years back, they are nice subjects.

I would imagine that the center float was also subject to a lot of oil and fuel dripping, something most aircraft can't do to themselves.

Great job there on the camo and paint chipping Mark!!! 

And I'd go with the EZ Line for rigging too, the PE stuff is a pain to work with IMHO. 

That is some nice weathering and painting. I agree with others, EZ Line is the way to go.

Thanks guys.
Well I finally dealt with the rigging, and finished this bird up. 

UPDATE:

Here the plane and main pontoon have been mated together and the rigging project is about half done. 

And here the rigging is all completed.

Sorry I don't have more pics of the process, but I was so focused on it while doing it I didn't think to stop to take pics.  I had two types of EZ-Line, the light and the heavy.  So I used the light on the small pontoons and the heavy everywhere else.  All the photos I've found of the "Dave" showed pretty thick rigging, so the heavy line seemed to fit well.

The heavy EZ-Line is white, and I thought it would be easy to paint it a dark metallic color.  But it proved to be a hassle.  In the future I will buy black line instead. 

Here's a picture of the propeller, prior to installation.  I toyed with the idea of painting the red stripes, but decided to go with the kit's decals.  They turned out fine.

FINAL PICTURE GALLERY
Here are my final pics of the plane.  The last touches I put on it were a couple of small bits of scrap plastic for the rigging fences, fine EZ-Line used for the radio wires, and small blobs of white glue on the rigging intersections on the pontoons.

img]https://i.imgur.com/w9jo9Kv.jpg[/img]

Final thoughts:  I really enjoyed this Hasegawa kit.  The fit was terrific and the build went smoothly.  My only gripe with the kit is the total lack of rigging information. Even down to the box art and instructions, which don't show any rigging at all.  I only learned it had rigging when I researched the plane.  

Let me know if you have any questions about this kit.

Cheers,
Mark

That is just fantastic work! Very inspiring.

I love float planes and this one is no exception. Beautiful job Mate

That is beautiful workmanship, Mark.

Thanks for a well-done WIP thread. And those blown-white background pics at the end are very well done, too.

Mark: Beautiful work!!! The weathering, camo, rigging, white lines on the stabs- it all turned out fantastic!!!

I've heard of people using a Sharpie marker to colour the white rigging. Haven't tried it myself though.

All of the above! Great WIP and Photos and an outstanding model. Good to see you back on the bench!

Mike

Very nice model of an unusual aircraft

Ole

That is just fantastic work! Very inspiring.

Thanks Ole.

Jay Jay

I love float planes and this one is no exception. Beautiful job Mate

Thank you Jay Jay.

Greg

That is beautiful workmanship, Mark.

Thanks for a well-done WIP thread. And those blown-white background pics at the end are very well done, too.

Thanks Greg.  I have a table on the opposite side of the room from my workbench, with a big white piece of paper draped onto it.  Thanks to the window just to the left of it the sun provides all the fill light I need, along with one key light (daylight color temp) in front of the subject.  Occasionally I will tweak exposure in Photoshop, but usually don't need to with this setup.

Gamera

Mark: Beautiful work!!! The weathering, camo, rigging, white lines on the stabs- it all turned out fantastic!!!

I've heard of people using a Sharpie marker to colour the white rigging. Haven't tried it myself though.

Thanks Gamera.  That's an interesting idea.  I don't have anything else in the stash that requires rigging, but next time around I'll give that a test.

mrmike

All of the above! Great WIP and Photos and an outstanding model. Good to see you back on the bench!

Mike

Thanks Mike, glad to be back at it.

ChrisJH666

Very nice model of an unusual aircraft

Thank you Chris.  It is unusual, makes it really stands out sitting next to all my other builds.

This is really cool. Really nicely done overall, and great to see something a little different from the usual roundup. 

Excellent result!

Yep, float planes are really neat!